Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

Accendo Reliability

Reliability Engineering Professional Development
  • About
    • Adam Bahret
    • Andre Kleyner
    • Anne Meixner
    • Ash Norton
    • Carl Carlson
    • Chris Jackson
    • Chris Stapelmann
    • Dennis Craggs
    • Doug Plucknette
    • Fred Schenkelberg
    • Greg Hutchins
    • James Kovacevic
    • James Reyes-Picknell
    • John Paschkewitz
    • Katie Switzer
    • Kevin Stewart
    • Kirk Gray
    • Les Warrington
    • Mike Konrad
    • Mike Sondalini
    • Perry Parendo
    • Rob Allen
    • Robert Kalwarowsky
    • Steven Wachs
    • Tim Rodgers
  • Reliability.fm
    • Dare to Know
    • Speaking Of Reliability
    • Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast
    • Rob’s Reliability Project
    • Practical Reliability Podcast
    • Reliability Matters
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
    • Asset Reliability @ Work
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Conscious Asset
      • Maintenance and Reliability
      • Plant Maintenance
      • RCM Blitz®
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Inside FMEA
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • Reliability Reflections
  • eBooks
    • Reliability Engineering Management DRAFT
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Books
    • Webinars
    • Journals
    • Higher Education
    • Podcasts
  • Groups
    • Reliability Integration
    • Mastermind
    • Study Groups
  • Courses
    • 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge
    • SPC-Process Capability Course
    • 5-day Reliability Green Belt ® Course
    • 5-day Reliability Black Belt ® Course
    • CRE Preparation Course
    • RAMwright Courses
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Live Events
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home

on Leadership & Career

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:

  • Katie Switzer — Advanced Engineering Culture series
  • Ash Norton — Engineering Leadership series
  • Tim Rodgers — Managing in the 2000s series
  • Rob Allen — Product Development and Process Improvement series

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Benefits of Comparing DMAIC with Project Management

Benefits of Comparing DMAIC with Project Management

Our previous article covered the benefits of comparing waterfall with agile, emphasizing the benefit of planning the agile process and product backlog content.  In this article we’ll compare the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) thought process, with a project management thought process.

DMAIC is a problem-solving thought process applies critical thinking to ensure robust problem solving.  (See our previous article on the subject here.)  DMAIC is not necessarily a process by which projects are managed, however.  Recall the high-level project management process as follows:

The key overlapping phases are “measure” (in DMAIC) and “plan” (in simplified project management).

Combining the two would simply include a “Measure and Plan” phase, thereby ensuring a robust problem-solving thought process AND a robust project plan.  Recall some of the “plan” phase deliverables that would complement the technical “measure” (of the problem) and business benefit “measure”.

  • Project Plan Checklist – a customized checklist that asks key questions about how the project will be managed, executed, monitored & controlled.
  • Risk Assessment – an ongoing list of risks, scored by severity x likelihood.
  • Action Item List – an ongoing list of actions. Ideally the action item list would include the problem, issue or opportunity, in addition to the corresponding action.  Each action has a person responsible and an action sponsor.
  • Project Schedule – schedule of activities and milestones, ideally in MS Project. Alternatively, a more informal schedule can be established within the action item list.
  • Work Breakdown Structure – define and organize the project work according to a deliverable-oriented breakdown into smaller components (work packages or activities).  For DMAIC, the WBS would include deliverables related to the analytical tool or analysis being planned.

In summary:

Therefore, DMAIC can be more effectively executed using a “measure & plan” phase (or at least require planning to be performed in the measure phase).  Other benefits include training team members in fundamentals of project management, as well as enabling planning deliverables to be reviewed and approved in subsequent gate reviews.

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: DMAIC, lean manufacturing, lean six sigma, portfolio management, product life cycle process, program management, project governance, Project Management, Project Management Process, Project Planning Checklist, Project Schedule, Projects Planning, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Benefits of Comparing Agile with Waterfall

Benefits of Comparing Agile with Waterfall

Previous articles have covered a proposed waterfall product development phase/gate process.  This article will compare and contrast waterfall with Agile product development, especially with respect to the front-end of the process.

Let’s start with a proposed waterfall product development phase/gate process.  (The process below implies a hardware product, however, it can be considered any waterfall process for now.)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile, agile product development, agile product validation, customer value, Lean Project Management, New Product Development, portfolio analysis, project approval committee, project governance, Project Management, requirements management, scrum, scrum master

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Simplified Project Management (Part 2)

Simplified Project Management (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this article series, we explored a simplified project management process using a phase/gate structure that enables a robust project planning and execution thought process.  Now let’s identify some deliverables within each of the phases.

These deliverables would be required and reviewed at each of the gates.  Below is a brief description of each:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: DMAIC, lean manufacturing, lean six sigma, portfolio management, product life cycle process, program management, project governance, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Simplified Project Management (Part 1)

Simplified Project Management (Part 1)

Organizations often accumulate a list of desirable projects, however, may not have project management bandwidth to filter or manage them effectively.

While project management is a respected discipline, the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) has swollen to several hundred pages.  This level of detail and complexity makes it difficult to absorb and apply for ‘informal’ project managers. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: DMAIC, lean manufacturing, lean six sigma, portfolio management, product life cycle process, program management, project governance, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Why DMAIC Endures as a Robust Thought Process

Why DMAIC Endures as a Robust Thought Process

From time-to-time, there are new ways of thinking or shortcuts to solving problems.  However, the tried-and-true Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) thought process endures as a fundamentally robust problem-solving thought process.

DMAIC must be properly applied to be effective, however.  In this article we’ll consider some important objectives within each DMAIC sub-process.

First, let’s consider each sub-process as an opportunity to perform collaborative problem solving.  In the “Define” phase (for example) the stakeholders and team members mutually agree on the problem statement, goals & objectives, process under study, process start/stop points, team members, business impact, etc.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, DMAIC, lean manufacturing, lean six sigma, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Is a Task a Deliverable?

Is a Task a Deliverable?

Tasks (or action items) are a fundamental building block of an ongoing work-effort or project schedule.  While we tend to think of completed actions as deliverables, a project schedule can also be considered a project deliverable….and the value of well-written task (within the schedule or otherwise) is often overlooked.

Generally, a task begins with a verb (some action to be performed) to achieve a milestone or outcome to some desired level of completion.  (Recall a previous related article where we discussed the “definition of done”.)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: customer value, lean product development, Lean Project Management, New Product Development, portfolio analysis, project approval committee, project governance, Project Management, requirements management, resource management

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Why Excellence May Not Be the Best

Why Excellence May Not Be the Best

When considering a business process improvement (or some other) initiative, we also want to communicate to motivate the right behaviors.  However, initiatives often seem to use buzzwords or use titles familiar to employees that have seen such initiatives come and go (the key word being “go”).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, Lean Project Management, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is Design for Assembly?

What is Design for Assembly?

In previous articles we covered design for six sigma and design for lean.  Now let’s take a look at Design for Assembly.  We’ll do this by following the Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) thought process, and add design for assembly (DFA) subtopics as follows:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Assembly, Design for Six Sigma, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Why an owner of a task or deliverable doesn’t really exist…

Why an owner of a task or deliverable doesn’t really exist…

When it comes to ensuring a task or deliverable is accomplished, we often see the word “owner” used.  Perhaps surprisingly, there really is no true ‘owner’ of anything in the context of program or project management.

We can begin explaining this with two adjectives:  responsible and accountable.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen 2 Comments

Design for Lean

Design for Lean

In this article series, we covered several topics in the area of product development and project management.  We will now begin to explore process improvement with the topic “Design for Lean”.  While design for lean may be a subtopic within product development, it helps us understand operational risks, operational costs, enables operational planning and process improvement.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, DFSS, DFx, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma, Value stream map, VSM

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Critical Thinking for Product Development

Critical Thinking for Product Development

Previous articles have covered product development tools and methodologies such as lean product development, agile, design for six sigma, product life cycle (PLC) and project management processes.

In this article, lets consider “the product” being developed any hardware product, software, IT system, service or new business process.  We’ll use the acronym “PSSBP” (Product, Service, Software, Business Process) as an all-encompassing placeholder and to illustrate critical thinking on the topic as follows:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, DFSS, DFx, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is DFx?

What is DFx?

In a previous article, we defined design for six sigma (DFSS) as a thought process focused on maximizing customer value and minimizing cost.

More specifically, DFSS is used to reduce variability in product performance (thereby increasing value), using analytical models and our knowledge of manufacturing variability to enable specification limits on difficult-to-manufacture tolerances to be increased (thereby reducing cost).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, DFSS, DFx, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is Design for Six Sigma?

What is Design for Six Sigma?

For the majority of organizations, long-term success is tied directly to the new product development process. Tomorrow’s revenue and growth are tightly bound to how successful you are at launching new products.

Offering genuinely valuable, high quality products is, more than ever, the best way to capture market share.  Also, more investment up-front minimizes overall expense.

…fewer design iterations to achieve the same goals (reduced time to market), more efficient production and delivery processes (reduced operating costs), fewer defects & warranty costs during the entire product life cycle (increased customer satisfaction).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: Critical to Quality, customer value, Design for Six Sigma, DFSS, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, product life cycle, Project Management, six sigma

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Requirements versus Stories

Requirements versus Stories

In this article, we’ll compare and contrast the definition of a requirement, with a ‘story’, which is used in agile/scrum.

Both requirements and stories establish a clear understanding of customer needs in the context of desired functionality.

The framework for each is somewhat different, however.

Recall the definition of a requirement:

…a requirement defines “what the product (or process) design shall provide <output> at operating conditions <input>”

The framework of a story is as follows:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile, agile product development, customer value, Lean Project Management, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, project governance, Project Management, scrum

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

The Three Disciplines and Change Management

The Three Disciplines and Change Management

In this weeks article, we’ll explore how the three disciplines (product development, process improvement and project management) can enable change management.

First, it’s worth reflecting on how these disciplines fit together.  Starting with product development our goal is to understand customer value, and to optimize the product (or service) by maximizing customer value and minimizing cost.  It can be seen that, process improvement naturally complements this objective as way to further reduce costs.  In addition, project management establishes how product development and process improvement is planned, executed, controlled and monitored.

Now let’s look at some key attributes of change management, along with elements of the three disciplines mentioned above.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Leadership & Career, Product Development and Process Improvement Tagged With: agile product development, customer value, Lean Project Management, New Product Development, PLC process, product development, project governance, Project Management, resource management

Next Page »

Join Accendo

Receive information and updates about articles and many other resources offered by Accendo Reliability by becoming a member. It’s free and only takes a minute.

Join Today

Recent Articles

  • Benefits of Comparing DMAIC with Project Management
  • The Rover Says Good Bye! :(
  • 100% Inspection
  • Don’t Need a Science Project
  • Don’t Forget to Subscribe to our Weekly Email Updates!

© 2019 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service